


Leveling Out

by ThoughtfulConstellations



Series: Just Keep Your Eyes on Me [1]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blindness, Dating, F/M, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:18:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtfulConstellations/pseuds/ThoughtfulConstellations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Matt touches Kirsten’s face, he hears her heartbeat slow down and level out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leveling Out

**Author's Note:**

> I was appalled by the lack of Kirsten McDuffie/Matt Murdock fics, so I put together this little thing. Oops.
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Enjoy! =)

The first time Matt touches Kirsten’s face, he hears her heartbeat slow down and level out.  She’s been a little nervous the past hour and a half that they’ve been out on this date—it was her idea to walk on the boardwalk, and Matt had said ok just because he’d wanted to be with her—but as soon as he asks her if he can touch her face, and she says yes, stopping her slow walk and taking his hand in hers before placing it on her cheek, her heart grows calm.  In that moment, Matt thinks to himself that the sound of her heartbeat is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.  He wants to tell her, but he doesn’t know how to say that without sounding weird.

But this is _Kirsten_. She knows him well enough to still want to date him despite the fact that he sometimes says weird things that most people wouldn’t expect to hear come out of his mouth.  He’s pointed out plenty of weird things before—the smell of her jewelry cleaner on her earrings whenever she leans her face in close to his, the way her laugh isn’t exactly one sound but a combination of a thousand reverberations, the sound of her shirt ripping on accident one time letting him know that it’s made of cotton just from the way the threads tear. She’s used to it, and she still somehow sticks around.

Matt runs his hand along her face as he feels the contours of her nose, the high swell of her cheekbones, and the low slopes of her cheek itself. And then he stops. He stops the movement of his hand, and before he knows it, he’s smiling. “You have dimples.”

The small indent beneath his fingers deepens, and she nods, taking her hand with her movements. “Yes.  Yes, I do.”

“I didn’t know you have dimples,” he murmurs, almost accusingly.

“Sorry, Counselor.  Didn’t know I was supposed to include that information,” she replies, her voice amused. He can hear a thousand colors of happiness and lightheartedness running through her tone.  Can he even hear colors?  Matt shrugs the question away.  For whatever reason, Kirsten McDuffie has him feeling poetic, and he can’t seem to find it in him to apologize for his newfound poeticism.

“I’m charging you with obstruction of justice,” he quips.

“Didn’t know you were into courtroom dirty talk, but I can’t say that that surprises me.” Kirsten sounds like a damn cat purring, and Matt shifts as she says the phrase, “dirty talk.” He can feel her mouth curve and melt beneath his hand, and he’s surprised to find that he wants to touch her lips. Actually, no, he’s not all that surprised. He’s wanted to touch her lips since the day she said her first smartass comment to him.

“I’m not dirty talking,” he protests, a smile on his own face. “I’m just…talking.”

“If this is how Matt Murdock flirts, then it’s terrible,” Kirsten replies, but he can tell that she doesn’t really mean it.  He continues to trail his hand over her face, feeling each and every part of her that there is to touch except her mouth. Her chin is small and compact, and her forehead is even and symmetrical—God, even her nose is the cutest fucking thing he’s ever touched.  He touches her face everywhere.  Except for her mouth.

“Can’t believe you have dimples,” he says, more to himself than to her. He sounds like a grumpy old man as he says it, but Kirsten laughs, and it’s like the sound of it is a prism catching a sunbeam. “I never pictured you with dimples.”

“You’ve pictured me?” Kirsten’s still smiling, but she sounds curious and interested now.

Matt nods. “Mmhmmm.  Remember, I used to be able to see.  I know what people look like.”

“So how do you picture me?” Kirsten asks.  She’s trying to sound flirty and mildly uninterested, but she almost sounds nervous and shy.  Her heart skips, and Matt hears it; he has to force himself not to smile or else he’ll have to come clean about it, and he doesn’t want to.

“I picture you with brown hair,” he says slowly, thinking about the images he’s pieced together. “I picture you with blue eyes and a wide mouth. Slender nose, slender face.”

“Well, the only thing you got right is the hair,” Kirsten says, but she sounds more serious.  Her heart is beating louder and a little harder now.

“Kind of like Sandra Bullock.  But with blue eyes,” Matt thoughtfully adds.  He doesn't think to include that he thinks she looks like the Sun beneath his fingers.

“You know what Sandra Bullock looks like?” Kirsten asks, surprise edging into her voice.

“Oh, I wasn’t _that_ young when I lost my sight,” Matt responds with amusement. “I remember what she looks like.”

“Well, you’re not even close,” Kirsten replies.

“Not even the slightest bit?” he asks.

“Oh, no.”

He lifts his other hand and puts it on the other side of her face. Her heart starts beating even faster, but when he rubs his thumb lightly over her cheekbone, it slows and evens out again, as if the gesture were calming her down.  She takes her hands and puts them on his wrists, the tips of her fingers curling around his wrist bones to rest on the soft skin on the backside of his wrist.

Matt doesn’t even want to try to imagine how they must look right now. They’re standing off to the side on the boardwalk with their hands on each other.  It probably looks like some kind of weird porno, Matt thinks, though he doesn’t share this out loud with Kirsten, despite the fact that she’d probably appreciate the sentiment and laugh with him.

Suddenly, it hits him that he’s able to tune out everything else around him when he touches her.  He hasn’t been distracted by all the sounds and smells of the beach and people being loud and obnoxious; for the past five minutes, he’s been completely focused on her. He doesn’t know if this is good or not, and he’s not even sure if he really wants to know the answer just then. Touching Kirsten McDuffie being the only thing to drown out the sensory overload might be best possible thing to ever happen to Matt Murdock, but it almost might be the worst possible thing to ever happen to Daredevil.

There is no room for Daredevil in this moment, so he shoves those thoughts out of his mind and keeps letting his hands rest on Kirsten’s face. He knows he should probably take his hands off; this touching session has the potential to turn weird really fast, but he doesn’t want to take his hands off her.  And honestly, she doesn’t seem to be uncomfortable with it. Hell, she has her hands around his wrists as if to hold him steady, to keep him there.

“Angelina Jolie?  Am I closer?” he asks. She laughs again, and she shakes her head.

“Still nowhere close,” she replies.

“I’m ok with that,” he says honestly. “I like you better looking the way you do.  Far more beautiful than either of those women.”

Her heart does that lovely little skip again, and she loosens her already loose hold on his wrists just enough to drag her forefinger over where his pulse can most easily be felt just slightly off from center. “You don’t know what I look like.”

“I know enough to know that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, and you have the loveliest heartbeat I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to,” he says.  Her cheeks grow a little warm underneath his palms, and his mouth slides up into a grin when he feels her dimples deepen.

“Well. Keep talking like that, and I’m going to get so used to that I won’t be able to accept any other kind of talk from you,” she says. “Actually, I think I prefer this side of you over Counselor Murdock.”

“Excuse you, Counselor McDuffie, Counselor Murdock is the best,” Matt protests.

“No. _I’m_ the best,” she says, her smile still the most beautiful thing he’s ever touched. They continue to stand there, neither of them speaking. It’s pleasantly quiet between them, and Matt doesn’t feel uncomfortable, but just as he’s about to say something, Kirsten moves his right hand down the side of her face and turns her mouth in towards his palm.  All of a sudden, she warmly kisses the inside of his palm.

That’s when Matt’s world goes still.

He’s no longer standing on this boardwalk.  He’s no longer breathing ocean air.  He’s no longer acknowledging seagulls in the far off distance cawing and flapping their wings as they slice through the sky. His senses go dull, but only for a second because they come rushing back as he finally brushes his fingers over her lips. For a second, she moves her mouth as if she’s going to say something, but if she had anything in mind, she bites it back and just closes her mouth as he touches that one part of her that drove him crazy the first time she snarkily called him Daredevil.

“Now _that’s_ just how I imagined,” he says out loud.

“What?” Kirsten gives a laugh, and Matt realizes that that thought hadn’t stayed in his head.

“Your mouth.  It’s how I pictured it,” he said.

“And how does my mouth look in your head?” she asks.  The flirtatious tone is back in her voice, and he realizes that he always wants to keep her happy.  He doesn’t want her to have to experience the pain that being Daredevil has brought into his life.  Instead, he just wants her to be happy and carefree and young, the way she is in this moment.  And if Matt allows himself to think this way, he’ll even say that _he_ feels happy and carefree and young.  He wants her to feel like this forever, to sound joyful and alive. Most importantly, alive. Above all, _alive_ is the key word.

“Just like this,” he responds, deciding to opt out of telling her these thoughts going through his head.  He doesn’t want to ruin this date they’re having, and if he starts in on that depressing shit, he’ll most definitely ruin their date.

“Any kind of celebrity comparison or match up in your head?” she asks curiously.

“No,” he answers, 100% honest. “None at all.”

“Yeah?” She sounds interested.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Because they’re not Angelina Jolie’s lips or Sandra Bullock’s.  These,” he brushes his fingers lightly over her bottom lip, “are Kirsten McDuffie’s and Kirsten McDuffie’s alone.”

“You messed up my lipstick,” she points out, but she isn’t angry. Surprisingly, she sounds like she doesn’t mind it.  Likes it even from the way her pulse is happily dancing.  Matt Murdock might point out some of the weirdest possible things, but Kirsten McDuffie sure has strange preferences, Matt thinks.

“I know.” He also knows that she’s wearing Wet ‘n’ Wild lipstick because the last girl he went out on a date with before he went on the first date of part two of dating Kirsten had worn Wet ‘n’ Wild lipstick.  He’d asked the girl what brand her lipstick was because it had a scent to it he didn’t quite recognize, and she’d told him. Now as he feels the little bit of lipstick on his fingers from where he’d skimmed them over Kirsten’s lips, he recognizes the smell and feels proud. “Wet ‘n’ Wild.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it. “That’s not the weirdest thing you’ve ever been able to identify.”

“Correct,” Matt confirms. “I only know because—“

“Don’t tell me.  I don’t want to know,” she says.  She takes his hands and moves them away from her mouth and to her neck.  He feels her take a step in towards him, senses her rising up on her tiptoes. Kirsten places her hand on the back of his neck to tilt his head down towards hers. “Sometimes I like secrets.”

And when she kisses him, when she finally kisses him, Matt’s pulse levels out, too.


End file.
